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Abstract

Finland is committed to the EU goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from the 1990 levels by 2050. We examine the potential role of the forests in fulfilling this goal in Finland. We base our analysis on the six scenarios that supported the parliamentary process of preparing Energy and Climate Roadmap 2050 for Finland to which we contributed by providing the assessment of forest sector development. While the scenario paths show that a systemic change to achieve the 80% target is possible with the increasing use of wood for energy being an important tool to cut emissions, our projections here show that an increase in forest carbon sink alone could play at least as important a role in improving the carbon balance. As the Finnish forests are growing clearly more than the projected removals of wood biomass are, Finland's carbon balance in full carbon accounting might become negative already before 2040 thanks to the forest sink. The forest growth might come to offset all other emissions sources even without other measures and still allow an increase in the use of wood for materials and energy. Nevertheless also other emission saving measures are needed because there is currently a cap which limits the use of LULUCF sinks as an emission reduction tool, and because of the fact that at some future point of time the forest sink will saturate while being vulnerable to many risks at the meantime.